Arise (Awakened Fate Book 4) (19 page)

The cocking of a gun cut her off. She looked over in alarm.

“I wouldn’t,” Phil cautioned, a handgun in his meaty grip.

Olivia stared at him. “You…”

“I told you we should have just put the girl underground,” he continued. “We could’ve avoided all of this and made her much easier for Harman to find.”

Robin stumbled forward, her face pale. “Phil, you
idiot
! You can’t let him just
experiment
on her! What about the–”

“A few storms don’t make an apocalypse, Robin,” Phil replied tiredly.

She blinked, incredulous. “Don’t you get it? This is
wrong
! You can’t–”

Robin cut off when he pointed the gun toward her.

Olivia tensed.

Phil gasped. He looked to Olivia furiously, his face twitching as if he was fighting something no one else could see.

“No…” he snarled.

His gun swung toward her so fast.

The shot rang through the forest.

Olivia choked. Staggering back, she lost her balance and fell to her knees. Her hand clutched her shoulder, pain written across her face.

“Bastard!” Robin cried. She rushed to Olivia. Noah grabbed Ellie’s arm, stopping her from doing the same.

“I can patch that up for you,” Harman told Olivia. “No worries.” He turned his gaze to us. “Now please, everyone. Allow Chloe to come with me.”

Chief Reynolds and the men with him drew their guns. Behind him, Aaron hesitated, and then cautiously did the same.

Phil aimed his weapon toward the rest of the elders. “All of you stay there. We just want the girl.”

He started toward us.

Fissures bright with firelight raced through Noah’s skin.

Dad moved into Phil’s path. “You can’t–”

Phil shoved him hard, sending him staggering to the side, and then he lifted the gun, aiming at Noah.

“Back off, kid,” Phil warned.

Noah strode toward him.

A glowing blur slammed into Phil, driving the gun from his hands and propelling him sideways into the trees. Another greliaran hit two of the men beside Chief Reynolds, throwing them both back into a sedan.

Snarling, Clay spun. His burning gaze went from me to Noah for less than a heartbeat, and then he lunged.

Noah intercepted him. They both tumbled to the gravel.

Gunshots rang through the forest. I looked up fast.

The men around Harman had scattered. In a panic, they fired at Owen as he charged them. In the center of the road, Dave scrambled to help Robin and Olivia while the other elders fled for their own vehicles. The elders surrounded Mom and Dad, jostling them when they ran past. I saw Mom fall.

A laugh came from my right. I turned.

Wyatt grinned, fiery cracks spreading through his face and his brown eyes disappearing into a red glow.

“Chloe, run!” my dad yelled.

Wyatt raced at me. I backpedaled, with Baylie and Ellie retreating behind me.

Noah slammed into him, driving him to the ground. Several feet away, Clay rolled to one side, shaking his head as if to clear it.

Ellie grabbed Baylie and me, pulling us with her. “Come on!”

We ran for the car.

“Noah!” Baylie yelled.

He shoved away from Wyatt and raced after us.

I yanked open the rear door and scrambled inside while Baylie jammed the key into the ignition. I spun, looking through the back window.

The elders’ vehicles were tearing pell-mell down the country road. Dave and Robin were bundling Olivia into the woman’s sedan and motioning for my parents to come with them.

And Wyatt was getting up. Behind him, Clay was pushing to his feet as well. Under fire from the rest of Chief Reynolds’ men, Owen was retreating into the forest while Harman ignored them all, shouting and waving at us as though to signal the others that we were getting away.

Noah tumbled into the seat beside me.

Baylie hit the gas.

The car surged forward, leaving the chaos behind.

Chapter Seventeen

Wyatt

By all that was holy, that was going to be the last time Noah and his damn stepsister drove off with my fish.

The
absolute
last.

I turned away while the stepsister’s car whipped around the curve and disappeared. Back by the junction of the road to our house, the elders were taking off like the hounds of hell were on their tail. Narrowly avoiding getting hit when the cars sped away, the big guys with guns bundled Harman into one of their brown sedans, ignoring his cries about the girl escaping.

“Hey, wait!” Clay shouted, running toward them. “Where are they going? Where’s the girl–”

Cars doors slammed. Gravel sprayed as the brown sedans raced off.

And then no one remained but us.

Snarling a curse, I looked around at the empty forest. That
couldn’t
be it. They were gone,
she
was gone, and we’d lost her trail. I wanted to run to the SUV right now, except that we’d left it a quarter mile back and by the time I made it there, she’d be even farther away. There were half a dozen paths out of here down that road; she could take any one.

But there had to be something else we could do. Somewhere else we could follow her. Harman wanted to get his hands on the fish too. Maybe we could call the little bastard.

I snorted at the thought. This wasn’t like Dad’s strategy. I wasn’t above calling people, but I also wasn’t going to sit around waiting for her to come to me. I’d take action. I’d chase her down.

And then I’d make her pay for getting away from me over and over again.

I started back down the road. It’d been a good plan, all things considered. Everything had been going great. We’d driven along the side road and the cops hadn’t even noticed us as they’d flown by on the main path. We’d kept the windows down, listening for any signs of others nearby, and soon enough picked up the sounds of an argument. The idiots had stopped along the road like they didn’t even think we’d be coming, and not a single one had noticed when we’d pulled over and then snuck through the forest toward them.

Of course, moving through the forest in silence was sort of our specialty. Catching dehaians who wandered onto our property would require not barreling toward them like a herd of cattle, after all. Dad had made a point of teaching us to move fast and quiet, and forced us to practice till even he couldn’t hear us coming.

Not smart, that.

My lip twitched. But regardless, things had been going well. We’d seen the landwalkers, the girl’s parents, all of them.

And the fish.

She’d been so close. Just beyond the trees, without Noah or any of those damn elders nearby. I’d sent Clay at Noah and Owen toward the big guys with guns, which left me that pretty little doll of a black girl and the stepsister all alone with my fish.

And it should have worked. It
all
should have worked.

If Clay had stopped Noah like he’d been supposed to, anyway.

Still rubbing his jaw from the punch Noah had landed on him, Clay watched me while I stalked toward him.

“So what are we going to–”

I slammed a fist into his face.

“Dumbass,” I spat as he stumbled back. “How could you let him get away from you like that?”

“He got away from you too,” Clay protested.

I growled. He retreated a step.

“Hey,” Owen called. “We got a live one over here.”

I turned. By the intersection, Owen hoisted himself up the last step of the incline leading from the forest to the road. Leaving Clay, I strode toward him.

“There,” he said, nodding toward the underbrush.

A man lay in the ditch below him. Dressed in a navy sports jacket with brass buttons that strained to hold the thing closed over his bulk, he was slumped against a tree with blood dripping from a gash on his bald head.

“Help…” he wheezed, his eyes closed. “Somebody help…”

“Clay ran into him,” Owen murmured, watching the guy. “He had a gun.”

I glanced to the man’s hands. “Not anymore.”

Skidding on the grass, I climbed down to where the man lay.

His hand fumbled toward me. “Please. Please, help…”

“Yeah,” I agreed, moving my foot out of his reach. “Sure, we’ll help you. Don’t worry. Just tell us, though. Where’s the girl headed?”

“Girl?” He opened his eyes with effort. “But– oh God. You–”

The fear on his face made me smile. I crouched down and watched him try to scoot away, not that the attempt worked. He could barely move.

“Simple deal, buddy,” I said. “You want help. We want the girl. Where is she?”

He seemed to be having trouble breathing and for a heartbeat, he almost appeared to debate answering. I started to stand again.

“Okay,” the guy relented. “They’re heading south. She’s… it’s…”

I reached down, grasping his sports jacket. “Where?”

He mumbled a string of numbers. My brow furrowed in confusion.

“Latitude and longitude,” Owen said behind me.

I didn’t turn around. “I knew that.”

“Now, please,” the man begged. “Please call the–”

I shoved him back into the tree again. His neck broke on the impact.

A faint, tingling sensation rushed along my arm, through my chest and up to my head, almost like adrenaline coming from outside me. But better than that.
So
much better. My lip spasmed toward a snarl, my brain torn between pleasure and shock.

As fast as it’d appeared, the feeling faded away.

I stared down at the guy’s corpse. Dad had warned us about the landwalker elders. Told us to stay away from them. They were dangerous, he said.

He’d never mentioned this.

It wasn’t like the stories. The shiver of magic that’d left the guy wasn’t anything like the overpowering high that came from a fish’s death. I’d seen the strength of that on Clay’s face when he’d taken down those two dehaians back by the house. This didn’t even come close.

But it was something. The landwalkers had something.

And it’d felt pretty damn amazing, even if only for a heartbeat.

No wonder they wanted us living on the coast away from them.

I drew a breath. I wouldn’t let Owen or Clay know. Compared to Clay’s dead scale-skins, this was nothing, and I didn’t want to be the brother who got the substitute kills. I was in charge and I was still going to be the one to get the girl.

And besides, information was power. I wasn’t sure how this bit would help me, but that wasn’t important right now.

I straightened again and turned back to Owen. “Get the car. We’ve got a fish to catch.”

Chapter Eighteen

Zeke

Circling the hills to reach Chloe couldn’t have taken longer if we’d been swimming through concrete.

Fighting back impatience, I cast another look to Jirral while we swam through the twilight deep. We’d been giving wide berth to the hills where he thought mercenaries might be hiding, and out of self-preservation, we’d barely said a word in that time. All my attempts to go faster had been met with glares from Jirral, though. The fact he was in better shape than many dehaians half his age wasn’t the point. I’d won more than my fair share of races back home and had adrenaline working for me besides. Ina would stay with me – she was lightning fast when she wanted to be – but that meant nothing for him. He wouldn’t stand a chance of keeping up if we pushed any harder than we already were.

I was just having trouble caring. Not with the minutes ticking away.

The ocean floor started to drop lower beneath us and Jirral motioned for us to turn, a signal that the hills far to our left had finally ended. Cutting sharply toward the distant shore, I started swimming faster.

Jirral made an irritated noise.

I kept going. I knew it would take Chloe several hours to travel there, and I figured it’d take that Joseph guy some time beyond that to get things ready to change her in the way our ancestors had apparently done. But it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t leave her a second longer than I had to in all this.

A half dozen shapes appeared in the distance ahead, racing toward us.

I pulled up fast while behind me, Jirral muttered a curse. Quickly, we spun, taking off in the opposite direction.

There were six more in the water that way.

Turning hard, we sped south.

Three others were there, lost in the murk and heading toward us.

“What the–” Ina gasped.

“Hills,” Jirral ordered.

We swam, water rushing around us while the shapes in the distance came closer.

Another group rose from the invisible hills, their forms strange in the water. Ina made a desperate noise.

“Come on,” Jirral snapped.

We dove, following him while he tried to cut a path under the ones to the east. I wasn’t sure it would work; we were so deep already, the space beneath them was limited. But they were spread out toward the surface and coming at us from every side.

There weren’t many options left.

We veered away from the seafloor and kept going. The dehaians turned, plummeting toward us. Jirral fought to keep up while Ina and I darted beneath them.

Small shapes sped through the water like torpedoes.

Jirral shouted furiously.

I spun. Nets encased him. Yanking the knife from her belt, Ina raced back to his side. Grabbing the vines, she worked frantically to free him.

And then the dehaians were on us.

A guy slammed into me, sending us both spinning through the water. His arm wrapped around my throat while his other hand grabbed for my wrist, attempting to pin it behind my back. Another dehaian rushed toward me, a net-gun in his hands.

I drove an elbow into the midsection of the one holding me and then twisted in his grip, my spikes slashing across his ribs.

His hold broke. Blood filled the water.

I darted to the side and pods shot through the water where I’d been, striking the bleeding man behind me. Kicking hard, I took off for Ina. Nets still clung to Jirral. At his side, Ina was working to free him while slashing at the speeding forms of the attackers to keep them from coming near.

“Leave me, girl!” Jirral yelled. “Get out of here!”